Textile rope-stacking apparatus



July 2, 1946. s. STEELE TEXTILE ROPE-STACKING APPARATUS Filed Match 1,1945 7 Sydney SteeIe ATTORNEY -to orderly pile or stack Patented July-2,1946,

Sydney Steele, Wilmington, Del.,

de Nemours & Company,

du Pont assignor to E. I.

Wilmington,

Deb, a corporation of Delaware. 7 Application March 1, 1945, Serial No.580,464

This invention relates toapparatus for the orderly stacking or piling oftextile rope in a container.

.In the textile arts, it is-generally desired to treat textile goods,for example, cloth, fiber bundles, piece goods and the like, withsolutions such as dyeing, bleaching, scouring or similar solutionstoproperly prepare the textile goods for merchandising. Frequently, withsolutions are placed in containers for storage to permit the solutionsto remain in contact with the goods over extended periods of time, orforpurposes of steaming, or otherwise heating goods previouslysubiectedto treating solutlons; for example, in the manner disclosed inU. S. Patent to Campbell et al. No. 2,267,718. Textile goods, in theprocess of treatment, also are frequently passed in a continuous mannerthrough several pieces of equipment, and temporary storage means,referred to in the arts as slack boxes" or scrays, are provided betweensuch' pieces'of equipment.

3 Claims. (01. 28-1) 1 goods treated Such textile goods are commonlyformed into ropes or extended bundles which are fed into a storagecontainer, or the like, by means of apparatus comprising a traversingmechanismin combination with a piling or plaiting mechanism; thetraversing mechanism functioning to traverse the goods in rope formanism functioning to move the goods back and forth from front to back ofthe container. Such back and forth from side to side of the container,and the plaiting mechapparatus usually contains a plurality ofsyn--chronously moving parts which are subiectto wear and loss of timingwhereby the. apparatus often loses its eiiiciency, or even itsoperability,

the goods in the container.

It is improved piling or stacking apparatus for use in theorderly'stacking of textile rope in a container.

object of this invention to provide an inU. s. Patents Nos.

. path circumferentially It is another object of this invention toprovide a stacking mechanism for textile rope which mechanism comprisesa singlemoving part.

It is still another obiectof this invention to provide in asingle'roller, means for forwarding textile goods and move the same bothfrom side to side, and from front to back .of a container.

' Other objects of the invention will appear here- I inafter.

The objects of the lisheddn general, by a re forwarding roller, in-whichhelical grooves about the roller deiine a circumferential ellipticaloutline.

invention may be accom-- erse helically grooved the bottom of theabove astorage container.

of the roller. I! the. external when taken in connection with theaccomp'anying illustrations in which: Fig. 1 is a perspective cordancewith the present invention, in .position Fig. 2 is a diagrammaticillustrate the manner inwhich it functions to move a rope. from front toback of the container.

Fig. 3 is a'perspective modified form of reverse grooved rollerconstructed in accordance with this invention.

Referring to Fig. 1, reference nates a rope-forwarding roller ofelliptical crosssection. Roller 8 is journaled for rotation inthe top ofa container ill. The roller shaft rotated by an electric motor or anyother type of driving mechanism (not shown). The. roller 8 is providedwith'reverse helical grooving I4 sufficient depth to traverse a textilerope from side to side of the container in. The grooves it must have adepth of at least inch and the button of the helical grooves, takenabout the roller 8, must form an elliptical path circumferentiallysurface of the roller 8 is elliptical in cross-section, the grooves llmay have a substantially uniform depth, as shown in Fig. 1 of thedrawing (except for possible slight non-uniformities in depth to preventslipping of the rope from the groove or grooves as described I1,749,355'and 1,918,210) and thereby providing a helically groovedroller in which the bottom of the grooves of the roller. The textilerope 18, consisting of continuous cloth goods, fiber is pulled by theroller 0 to forward the same to the container Ill. forth from side toside of the container by following the reverse helical grooveor groovesof roller '8. Since the'bottom of the helical grooves form an ellipticalpath circumferentially of the roller, the textile rope'is also to backof the container as it is, being traversed from side to side. The ropeis therebypiled or stacked in the container 'in the manner shown. It is,therefore, readily ap ar nt that the single rotating roller 0, helicallygrooved as above described, is the sole operating member to forward andstack the goodsin the container I. in an orderly manner.

I'll. 2-0! the drawing view of a reverse hell cally grooved ellipticalroller, constructed in acside .elevational view of a grooved ellipticalroller, in two positions, to"

view of a portion of a numeral 8 desigl2 maybe form an ellipticalbundles, or joined piece goods,

The rope is traversed back and.

thrown from front.

mmm mmm cally, how the roller a of m. 1 throws the textile 8 are shownas defining an elliptical path circumferentially of the roller. Thedistance X" represents the difference, at the forward side of theroller, between the short and long radii of the bottom of the grooves.The rope I6 is stacked from front to back of the container l0, eventhough the distance X is somewhat less than 'the width of the container,since it is caused to swing by the progressively changing contact of therope with surfaces of the roller 2 having different radii. In thedrawing, the roller 8 is shown positioned, relative to the containerIII, to place the distance X above the center of the container. Althoughthis centered position of PX" above the container is generally pre--ferred, in some cases the throw is not equal in 20, as shown in Fig. 3,has a cylindrical outer surface provided with grooves 24 of varyingdepth so that the bottom of the groove or grooves 24 will again form,about the roller, a circumferential path of elliptical outline, as shownby 22 which constitutes a projection of the bottom outline of the grooveupon theface of the roller.

, A rope-stacking roller of this form willhave the i advantage that itensures the maintenance of the rope in the grooves despite the throwing2 effect of the elliptical bottom of the grooves, since grooves ofgreater depthare provided at that section of the roller from which therope would have a tendency to jump the groove.

Round, reverse helically grooved rollers for 1 traversing of textilegoods are well known in the art; such rollers being exemplified by U. S.

Patents Nos. 1,749,355 and 1,918,210. However,

. prior to this invention, when used in the traversing of textile goodswhich were piled or stacked in a container, it was always considerednecessary to combine such a helically grooved roller 5 with a plaitingroller to move the goods from front to back of the container, as well asfrom side to side This necessitated a plurality of rope from front toback of the container Ill. The bottom I8 of the helical grooves ofroller moving parts, moving synchronously-with each other to produce thedesired result. By the present invention, the disadvantages entailed bya mechanism comprising a plurality of moving 5 partsare eliminated.-

The reverse helical grooving in the rope-forwarding rollers of thepresent invention may be constructed with any of the many knownrefinements for preventing the slipping or jumping of the textile ropefrom the groove or grooves. Since reverse helical grooving in rollersforzthe purpose of traversing textile rope is generally known, and sincethe specific construction of the hell-- cal grooving does not form apart of the present invention, details relating to specific reflne mentsin the'groove construction are generally omitted from the presentspecification. In order that the reverse helically-grooved rollers ofthe present invention may apply the desired pull or tension on thetextile rope, it may be desired to provide the same with surfacecharacteristics which will impart the desired frictional pull on thetextile rope. The surface within the grooves may, for example, be coatedwith a suitablesllghtly tackyresin or rubber composition, or it may beslightly roughened by sandeblasti'ng 'or by spray-coating with moltenmetal, orthe like. The grooves are preferably provided with slightlyrounded corners to prevent undue-abrading, or even tearing, of thetextile goods.

Since it is obvious that many other changes and modifications can bemade in the detailsv above described without departing from the natureand spirit of the invention, it is to be under,- stood that theinvention is not to be limited except as set forth in the appendedclaims.

I claim:

1. A textile rope forwarding roller having reverse helicalrope-forwarding grooves in which 40 the bottom of the grooves,circumferentially of the roller, form an elliptical outline.

2. A textile ropeforwarding roller, elliptical in cross-section, wardinggrooves 'in which the bottom of the i grooves, circumferentiallyof theroller, form an elliptical outline.

3. A cylindrical textile rope forwarding roller having reverse helicalrope-forwarding grooves 5 in which the bottom of the grooves,circumfer-' entially of the roller, form SYD NEY STEELE.

having reverse helicalrope-foran elliptical outline.

